


Sealed With a Kiss

by Chocolatequeen



Series: Love Letters [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Episode AU: s01e14 The Christmas Invasion, Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7171949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatequeen/pseuds/Chocolatequeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Doctor chose to take the vortex out of Rose with a kiss, he wasn't thinking about the power of a first kiss between soulmates. How could his precious girl be his soulmate, when he was so damaged? And yet he felt the mark as soon as it happened. Soulmates AU set in the DW canon-verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sealed With a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfectlyrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/gifts).



The Doctor stared at his beautiful Rose, surrounded by the glow of Time that currently ran through her veins. “The power’s going to kill you and it’s my fault,” he said, his voice shaking. How could he let Rose die? There had to be a way he could save her.

“I can see everything,” she said, her voice eerily distant. “All that is, all that was, all that ever could be.”

Hard as it was to believe, the Doctor knew exactly what she was seeing. Timelines, or maybe even more—with the vortex running through her mind, she could see every moment of time as it truly was and ever would be.

“That’s what I see,” he said as he got to his feet. “All the time. And doesn’t it drive you mad?”

“My head,” she said, pain breaking through in the second word.

The Doctor held his arms out to her. Rose didn’t know how to let go of the vortex own her own, but he did. If he didn’t act quickly, it would burn through her body as it was doing her mind. He had one chance—just one—to save her life. “Come here.”

“It’s killing me,” she moaned as she moved into his embrace.

“I think you need a Doctor.”

When the Doctor lowered his lips to hers, a bolt of white heat burned up his arm to sear into the skin above his hearts. He knew immediately what the sensation meant, impossible as it was. To find his soulmate after over a thousand years of life… for her to be so sweet and unstained by life compared to him… it didn’t make sense.

But he knew the way soulmarks worked as well as any other humanoid being in the universe—and thanks to Rassilon, it _was_ the same for all humanoids. Your soulmark wouldn’t appear until you kissed your soulmate for the first time. Romantics liked to say it meant the brand only verified what you already knew. Hedonists used it as an excuse to kiss anyone they wanted. And for those not interested in romance, it made steering clear of all entanglements remarkably easy.

The Doctor shoved the implications to the back of his mind and sent the remnants of the Time Vortex back into the heart of the TARDIS. When he carried Rose inside and set her down on the grating, he realised his regeneration had already started.

 _Well, at least the soulmark will help her recognise me._ He felt a momentary twinge of anxiety that she might reject him, since he’d never told her about regeneration, but surely she would know it was him. Soulmates were always reciprocal, never one-sided. (Sometimes they were three or four-sided, depending on the relationship, but no one was ever left to bear a soulmark alone.)

Rose woke up slowly, and the Doctor rambled somewhat manically, trying to avoid talking about what was happening. Not the best use of his time, he realised, but he suspected his next self was already influencing his behaviour, because his gob was running even more than it usually would.

Finally though, after talking about Barcelona and having two heads, he ran out of time. The regeneration energy pulsed beneath his skin, demanding to be let loose.

He took a deep breath and looked at Rose—his soulmate, and the woman he’d adored since the moment he’d taken her hand. “Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I.”

Regeneration energy exploded out of him then, and he threw his head back and let it do its job. It hurt—regeneration was always painful—but having Rose there made it better. Having Rose there and knowing she was his soulmate? How had he done this nine other times without her right there?

oOoOoOoOo

Rose dragged her tired body back up to the flat. The Doctor was alive, and he’d managed to save the day once again, this time by winning a sword fight for the planet. She shook her head; even to her that sounded mental, and she’d been there. It was a good day, but it had been a long one, and all she wanted to do was put on her pyjamas and crawl into bed for a few hours.

She barely stayed awake long enough to change, and when the alarm went off four hours later, she groaned and wished she could sleep a little while longer. But her mum had made her promise she’d get up and help with dinner, and the Doctor would be back soon.

Sparks tingled under Rose’s skin at the thought of the new, gorgeous Doctor. She had wondered for months now whether Time Lords had soulmates, and had been secretly hoping he was hers. Then when he’d sent her back to Earth, she’d known that soulmate or not, she was in love with him. Watching him change so soon after that realisation had been a shock, but the way he’d acted today, brilliant and incredible, even as he flirted with her… There was no way that man wasn’t the Doctor, and she loved him as much as she had before.

“Oi! Miss Lazybones! Get your bum out of bed and come help!”

Rose sighed and pushed the covers back. “Let me take a quick shower first, Mum!” she called out, shuffling into the bathroom.

She stripped her shirt off and tossed it into the hamper, then froze when she caught sight of her reflection. She’d never seen the mark over right breast before, but she knew exactly what it was. Her soulmark. Seeing the Doctor’s circular language etched on her skin made her heart beat a thousand times per minute, but there was still a piece she was missing, somehow.

_When did he kiss me?_

Rose ran a finger lightly over the mark that declared the Doctor to be her other half. Even the softest touch seemed to both fill and exacerbate the emptiness she hadn’t been aware of until now. The sensation surprised her for a moment—none of her friends had described this… this longing.

Then she remembered that the Doctor was telepathic. _Maybe part of the soulbond for Time Lords was like… a telepathic link,_ she mused as she turned the water on. _An’ until we do that, it’ll feel half-finished._

Did she want that, she wondered as she put conditioner in her hair. The soulbond was already an intimate relationship; she could only imagine how much telepathy would add to that.

She felt something at the edge of her awareness and realised it was the Doctor. The moment she sensed him, her mind automatically tried to reach for him. The Doctor seemed to know she was there, and he managed somehow to pass on a reassurance.

_Later._

Rose smiled, then gasped and dropped her body wash on the shower floor. There was only one time when it would have been possible for the Doctor to kiss her without her knowing it—during the thirty minutes she couldn’t recall from when she opened the heart of the TARDIS to when she woke up on the grating. And if that was the case…

…Then their soulbond had formed before he regenerated. Which meant when she’d asked him to change back, she’d rejected her soulmate.

Rose’s eyes filled with tears that were only partially related to the conditioner running into them. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she rinsed it out.

Soulbonds were unbreakable, and anything that attempted to separate soulmates hurt terribly. She’d never heard of anyone else rejecting their soulmate, but she could only imagine…

Somehow, Rose managed to get dressed and help her mum, even though what she wanted was to fly down the stairs and into the TARDIS so she could throw herself into the Doctor’s arms and apologise. She could wait until they were alone after dinner, although with each passing minute, she became less certain he would come to dinner.

 _Why would he?_ she thought bitterly. _We might be soulmates, but I’ve already hurt him so much…_

Finally, he pushed the door open and with one look, Rose knew all her concerns were unnecessary. The love she’d always imagined was lurking in his eyes was now blatantly obvious, and when she returned his gaze, she knew he could see her approval of his new look, her happiness that he was here, and her joy that they were soulmates.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor itched to get Rose alone. Her welcoming smile when he’d stepped into the flat had told him all he needed to know about their relationship, but he wanted to talk with her, to make sure they were truly on the same page. He wanted to kiss her again, as many times as she would allow.

He blessed Beth when she called and told them all to go outside. He led the way and didn’t stop until they were standing in front of the TARDIS. Hopefully once everyone was done looking up at the sky, he could get Rose inside for a private conversation.

Flakes of ash landed in his hair, but when Rose took his hand, he couldn’t have cared less. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she murmured as streaks of light lit up the sky. “What are they, meteors?”

The Doctor shook his head. “It’s the spaceship breaking up in the atmosphere. This isn’t snow, it’s ash.”

Rose’s mind projected her disgust as clearly as her wrinkled nose. He’d dismissed their brief telepathic connection earlier as wishful thinking, but this was very definitely Rose. His gaze darted to her. _How will she react when I tell her about the telepathic aspect of Gallifreyan bonding?_

“Okay, not so beautiful,” she muttered, brushing some of the ash off his coat sleeve.

Rose’s human heat seeped through his wool coat, suit jacket, and Oxford to warm his skin, and the Doctor understood why he’d been driven to choose an outfit with so many layers. With an effort, he kept his mind focused on the conversation instead of the way he tingled everywhere they touched.

“This is a brand new planet Earth.” He rocked back on his heels and looked up at the sky. “No denying the existence of aliens now. Everyone saw it. Everything’s new.”

“New Doctor, new Earth,” Rose said, unaware that she’d given the Doctor an idea for their next trip. “But still the Doctor and Rose, in the TARDIS.”

“Yeah?” he managed to whisper, his throat tight.

Rose shifted closer to him. “Oh yes,” she answered, and unless he was very wrong, her eyes darted to his lips.

As always, Mickey managed to ruin the moment. “You’re never going to stay, are you?”

The Doctor scowled when Rose let go of his hand and turned to Mickey.

“There’s just so much out there,” she told her old boyfriend. “So much to see. I’ve got to.”

Mickey nodded once, a ghost of a smile crossing his face. “Yeah.”

“Well, I reckon you’re mad, the pair of you,” Jackie said. “It’s like you go looking for trouble.”

The Doctor couldn’t stay on the edge of the conversation any longer. “Trouble’s just the bits in-between,” he told his—blimey, his mother-in-law. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tried not to think about that. “It’s all waiting out there, Jackie, and it’s brand new to me. All those planets, and creatures and horizons. I haven’t seem them yet! Not with these eyes.”

He left Jackie’s side and returned to Rose, delivering his last words in low, intimate tones just for her. “And it is going to be fantastic.”

Rose’s eyes lit up at the familiar word, and she eagerly took the hand he offered. The electricity coursing through them at the contact was familiar, but exciting at the same time. Now they both knew it was more than simply physical attraction, and the possibilities before them were dazzling.

“Shall we?” he asked quietly once everyone else had wandered back inside, nodding towards the TARDIS. “I think we’ve got some things to talk about, don’t you?”

“Definitely.”

The slightly breathless quality to her voice made his own breath hitch. Oh, he’d thought he’d been in tune with this woman before, but now that they were bonded… He shivered as he followed her into the TARDIS.

“Why don’t we have tea in the library?” he suggested as he shrugged off his long, brown coat. He glanced around for a coat rack, then tossed it over a coral strut instead. “The TARDIS will have some waiting for us if we ask nicely.”

The ship chimed her agreement and her pleasure over the new development between her two passengers. Rose looked up at the time rotor, then at the Doctor. “Has she always talked?”

Something flickered in his eyes, but instead of answering, he just smiled. “That’s one of the things we need to talk about, but I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Rose pursed her lips together and looked at him, gauging if he actually planned to explain why she could now understand the TARDIS, or if he was simply brushing her off. After a moment, she nodded and led the way to the library.

There was a fire in the fireplace and two steaming mugs of tea waiting for them when they arrived. Rose sat in the middle of the couch and took a sip from her own favourite red mug. “Doesn’t surprise me somehow that tea saved the world today.”

The Doctor sat next to her, leaving just a few inches between them. She watched him sip cautiously from his blue mug, then grin in delight. “Oh, I like it sweet this time,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“Your taste changes?” she asked anyway.

“In little things,” he said, picking up on the concern she’d tried to hide. “My tea, my clothes… little things I say, those all change. But soulmates are forever for Time Lords, just like they are for humans.”

The air whooshed out of Rose’s lungs at his casual acknowledgement of their new relationship. She wanted to see his soulmark, to run her fingers over her own name tattooed on his skin, but she wasn’t ready to take her shirt off and show him hers, so she held her tongue.

She clenched her fingers around the edge of the cushion, letting the feeling of the soft fabric distract her from the desire to touch the Doctor. “I didn’t know Time Lords had soulmates.”

A confusing grimace crossed the Doctor’s face. “You have soulmates like Time Lords did,” he corrected, then shook his head when Rose rolled her eyes. “I’m not being pedantic or superior,” he explained. “The founder of Time Lord society decided that our basic form was… I dunno, most aesthetically pleasing? Most logical? Anyway, he’s the reason so many races look like this, and one of the things that carried over was the soulbond.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “He sounds like a wanker,” she said bluntly, drawing a laugh from the Doctor.

“Oh, definitely,” he agreed cheerfully, then he took her mug and set them both down on the coffee table. “And I think that’s as much as I want to talk about Rassilon tonight, Rose Tyler.”

The purpose in his voice sent a shiver down Rose’s spine. “Was there something else you’d rather talk about?” she asked, teasing him with a hint of her tongue through her smile.

His eyes darkened and he pushed a strand of hair back over her ear before kissing her tenderly. Rose’s new soulmark burned at the first brush of his lips against hers and she pressed her hand to his chest where she knew his matching mark was hidden.

The Doctor gasped at her touch and broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. Rose tried to tilt her head back and capture his lips again, but he eluded her, and after a moment, she remembered they still had things to talk about.

“My Rose,” he whispered. A shaking finger traced her mark, and even through her hoodie, the simple touch ignited the same yearning for more she’d felt in the shower.

Rose reached for his hand and laced her fingers through his before kissing his knuckles. “My Doctor.”

“I thought I was one of the Unmarked,” he said when he pulled back, referring to those who never bore a soulmark. “Twelve hundred years, and here you are at last.”

Rose arched an eyebrow. “Twelve hundred? Last time it was nine hundred.”

“Ah.” The Doctor tugged on his ear. “Well, technically, I told you I’d been travelling through time and space for nine hundred years. I started when I was around three hundred.”

She blinked, taking a moment to process the information. In the grand scheme of things, she supposed another three hundred years didn’t really make that much of a difference.

“And… how many times have you changed?”

“Nine. This is my tenth incarnation.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I’d only just regenerated when we met, and I thought I had years to go before it happened again—long after you left, at least.”

Rose shook her head. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said earnestly. “I know it had to have hurt when…”

A flicker of pain flashed between them, and she squeezed his hand. “I didn’t know, must’ve been unconscious or something when you kissed me, because I didn’t feel the mark when it happened. I’d never have asked you…” She swallowed; no reason to repeat the words that she could tell still hurt him.

But the Doctor’s smile was gentle and held not a trace of condemnation. “Rose, it’s fine, I promise. When did you realise?”

She felt her face turn pink. “After the Sycorax, when I took a shower. I saw it in the mirror while I was getting undressed.”

Warm happiness flooded over her, and she wrinkled her forehead. “What?”

The Doctor rubbed his thumb over her pulse point. “You believed I was the Doctor even before you saw the mark,” he told her quietly. “You just… you knew me.”

“Of course I did,” Rose teased. “Who else would take on a sword fight for the fate of the planet?”

He made a happy little noise in the back of his throat that she knew immediately would become one of her favourite sounds in the world. She scooted closer to him and asked the question that had been in the back of her mind since her shower.

“Doctor, is there any way soulbonds are different for Time Lords?” She felt him still, and she finished the thought. “I know you’re telepathic, so I wondered if maybe…”

The Doctor looked down at Rose, eyes wide. He’d been trying to figure out a way to broach this topic, and she’d gone and figured it out on her own. “Yeah… You know how on Earth, bonding is sort of like engagement? You go get rings so people can tell you’ve found your soulmate, and then you have a separate wedding ceremony to formalise the bond, right?”

Rose nodded.

“It was similar on Gallifrey. The initial soulbond was only the start of the relationship. It does form a light telepathic connection between the soulmates. You might have been able to pick up on some of my emotions?”

She nodded again.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, just like bonded humans get married, bonded Gallifreyans… bond.” He shrugged. “We weren’t the most creative when it came to words, but ‘bond’ is the best word to describe the telepathic relationship.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I didn’t think it would be possible with a human soulmate, but maybe the way you came back to the Game Station made it possible.”

The Doctor only realised he’d voiced that speculation out loud when Rose took a sharp breath. “What exactly did I do?” she asked. “I remember arguing with Mum and Mickey about why I needed to come back, and I remember standing in front of the console…”

He could feel her mind working frantically, trying to fill in the blanks of her memory. In some ways, he wished he could keep this from her, but if she was willing to form a complete bond with him, there was no point in keeping secrets now that would only come out later.

“You opened the heart of the TARDIS, Rose,” he told her quietly. “The two of you merged and became the Bad Wolf, a… a goddess of time,” he said, not using the term lightly. “And since she only communicates telepathically, instead of with mouths and words, my guess is that she enhanced your telepathic ability.”

Rose closed her eyes, and he could feel her thoughts turn inward. “Yes,” she said a moment later, the ethereal quality of her voice echoing Bad Wolf. “We wanted to save you.”

Her eyes flew open, and the Doctor scooted backwards a few inches, away from the golden fire shooting out at him.

“An’ don’t you ever think about sending us away like that again,” she ordered. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it together. If you think it would be better for us to leave, you’ll ask first. None of this tricking me into the TARDIS and locking the door behind me, do you hear me?”

He tugged at his ear and nodded meekly. _Blimey, Rose is sexy when she’s angry._

“That’s when it happened,” he said, changing the subject. “You…” He swallowed hard, remembering Rose’s last few moments as Bad Wolf. “You had the whole of the time vortex running through your head, and it was burning you up. I knew I needed to get it out of you, so I kissed you.”

“You kissed me to take the time vortex out of me?” A soft smile curved the corners of her mouth, the earlier anger completely gone. “Doctor, you’re a romantic.”

He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “I’d been wanting to kiss you for months,” he admitted.

To his utter confusion, Rose’s smile disappeared a moment later, and guilt flooded their fledgling connection. “You said… when I asked what was happening to you, you said you’d absorbed the energy of the time vortex, and that was why you were going to change. Did I…?”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “It was worth it though, wasn’t it?” he asked. “That kiss is what marked us as bound, after all.”

A long moment later, she nodded slowly. The Doctor didn’t hold her uncertainty against her; after all, he still wasn’t sure how he felt about her risking her life to become the Bad Wolf so she could save him from the Daleks.

“Anyway,” Rose said, “I think you were going to tell me about the telepathic bond.”

The Doctor shifted so he could look into Rose’s eyes while he talked. The TARDIS had dimmed the lights, and the fire cast flickering shadows over her face. He kept her hand in his, needing to touch some part of her.

“A telepathic marriage bond is the most intimate connection two people can have,” he told her. “The partners are essentially open books to one another. There’s no room for hiding emotions or motivations. Thoughts can be kept secret, though when they’re touching, even that becomes difficult. It’s the ultimate act of trust, really.”

He held his breath as Rose took that in. It was a lot to ask for, even of someone who grew up with the idea. For someone who’d never considered that kind of connection before…

He could feel Rose’s resolve firm up, and she looked up at him. “And we could have that?”

If the Doctor hadn’t been sitting, he might have swooned from shock. Five short words, and she accepted every part of who he was.

“I think so,” he said. “Are you sure, Rose? This bond allows for some privacy in your own mind, but until you learn how to use barriers…”

Rose ran her fingers over his jaw, and the Doctor didn’t even try to hide his shudder. “I trust you, my Doctor.” He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “Tell me how we do this.”

The Doctor reluctantly opened his eyes and pulled away from her. “We’ll form a telepathic connection, like we have when I’ve helped you with your nightmares. Once we’re connected, I’ll show you what to do next.”

Rose looked up at her Doctor. “Before we do this, I want to tell you something. I know you’ll be able to tell once you’re in my head, but… I want you to hear the words, first.” She stared at his tie and laughed self-consciously. “I suppose it’s pretty human of me to think the words matter more than feeling it for yourself, but I am human, so…” She drew a breath and looked up at him. “I love you, Doctor. I have for so long now, but I didn’t realise it until I thought you were going to die and I didn’t know how to help you.”

His shoulders sagged, and she realised he’d been holding his breath. “Oh, Rose Tyler,” he said reverently, “I love you so much.”

She blinked back the sudden tears that threatened. “I’m ready for the bond now, if you are.”

The Doctor’s brilliant grin nearly blinded her. “Oh yes! Put your hands on my temples, Rose… yes, like that,” he said and followed his own instructions. “You should feel me at the edge of your mind; can you let me in?”

She waited a moment, then she became aware of another presence. Thanks to the little bit of experience she had, letting him in was simple. The Doctor’s mind poured into hers like a cool stream, and Rose basked in the sensation.

 _Now try to go into my mind,_ he told her telepathically.

Rose followed the stream to its source, and when she met with the faintest hint of resistance, she put her hand against it and thought about how much she loved him, and she was through.

 _Rose, my Rose_. _How could you possibly love me like this?_

She turned a circle in the cavernous expanse of the Doctor’s mind and saw the scarlet thread of his love for her woven through everything. _How can you ask me that, when I can see how much you love me?_

In the library, the Doctor pressed his forehead to hers. “My precious girl,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve you, but I am never going to let you go.”

Rose’s disagreement with that assertion was obvious, but she seemed to catalogue his feeling of unworthiness with a reminder to discuss it later. _I thought we were in the middle of something here, Doctor_.

He let her tease him away from his darker thoughts—easy enough when the brilliant gold of her mind surrounded him with her love. _You’re right, we are. Can you see what I’m doing in your mind, Rose?_

Finding the thread of her consciousness, he wove himself around it, knitting their minds together. A moment later, he sighed in delight when Rose tugged at a strand of his mind and mimicked him.

 _Like this?_ she asked as she twined herself around it.

The Doctor’s fingers trembled against Rose’s temples. His time senses lit up as their timelines twisted together so tightly he couldn’t tell them apart any longer.

 _Y—yes, Rose_ , he told her, nearly speechless with how perfectly she was slotting into his mind.

 _Why’s that a surprise?_ she asked. _Shouldn’t soulmates fit each other perfectly?_

 _Of course. I just didn’t know how good it would feel._ He wound around another piece of her consciousness. _Doesn’t this feel good to you?_

 _I think you can tell how good it feels to me, can’t you?_ In answer, the Doctor swept Rose up into his arms and carried her towards his bedroom.

The TARDIS, who had been watching the proceedings up to that point and helping her Wolf when she needed a guiding hand with her new telepathy, withdrew and gave the newly bonded couple as much privacy as she could. She also ensured that none of the phone calls and texts from Rose’s mother came through, and when the loud blonde woman pounded on the door at two in the morning, the ship made sure the noise didn’t disturb them.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose woke up slowly the next morning, trying to remember why she felt more content than she’d ever been in her life. A soft puff of laughter pulled her completely awake, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the Doctor looking down at her with a faux wounded expression on his face.

“Am I that forgettable, then?”

“Thought it might have been a dream,” she told him, but the familiar scrawl of her own signature over his left heart told her that, no, it was real. The Doctor was her soulmate. She couldn’t resist placing a soft kiss over the mark.

His happiness buzzed in the back of her mind, and Rose reached tentatively for their bond. As she caressed it gently, the memories of the previous night came to her vividly and her telepathic touch turned passionate.

The Doctor groaned and rolled her onto her back, pressing kisses to her neck. “You should stop now if you want to get out of bed any time soon, love,” he whispered against her skin.

Rose tilted her head back, encouraging him to trail kisses down to her collarbone. _Hmmm… why would I want to get out of bed?_ she asked, feeling his arousal build as she intensified the telepathic contact. _It’s our wedding night, isn’t it?_

_I have something I want to give you, though._

That promise intrigued her, and she carefully pulled her touch back from their bond. “All right then, what do you have?”

The Doctor rolled over to rummage around in the drawer of his own nightstand. When he found what he was looking for, he sat up in bed and looked at his bondmate, now sitting up and wearing his vest. The burgundy sheets were pooled around her waist, and he had to swallow twice at the enticing picture she made.

Rose smiled and teased him with her tongue. “Present first,” she told him.

He ran his hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “This is something I picked up centuries ago, though I couldn’t understand why at the time. I just looked at them and knew I needed to buy them. I put them away and almost completely forgot about then, but when I met you…” He tugged at his ear. “When I met you, I dug them out and put them here, in case someday…”

Rose pressed a finger to his lips. “You’re babbling,” she said gently. “Just show me what you’ve got.”

He nodded and took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then opened his fist to reveal two rings. Rose’s jaw dropped slightly, and he licked his lips. “It’s what humans do, right?” he asked. “Give your soulmates rings? Like I said, I didn’t understand why I was so compelled to buy them, because I’d already given up on finding a soulmates at the time, and Gallifreyans didn’t give each other jewellery, but I couldn’t leave the trading post without them.”

Rose reached for the slimmer band, which had diamond held in place by a Celtic knot design. “It’s rose gold.”

“It is. Very unusual in other parts of the galaxy, but somehow, this ring ended up on that jeweller’s table.”

“I love it, Doctor.” She picked up the heavier ring, an intricate piece of Celtic knot work done in laurium, bordered by two thin bands of rose gold. “It’s like they were meant to go together.”

“Like us,” he agreed. He held his breath when she picked up the ring and slid it onto his left hand. “A perfect fit.”

“Like us,” Rose echoed, holding her hand out.

The Doctor took the diamond ring and pushed it onto her finger. “Rose Tyler, how long are you going to stay with me?”

Rose brushed her knuckles along his jaw, then combed her fingers through his hair. The Doctor sighed and leaned into her caress, then dipped his head down to kiss her. Just before their lips met, she breathed a single word.

“Forever.”


End file.
